After many, many hours of travel and very few hours of sleep, the Global Routes India family arrived in Bangalore, a city of firsts for many of us- our first rickshaw ride, first taste of Indian food, first bucket shower. Even though we only spent a day in the city, our time together seemed much longer as we got to know each other at the Lalbagh Botanical Gardens. We learned more about the organization we will be working with, the IHDUA hospital. We also began to understand a little of the culture on the walk back to our hotel.

On Wednesday, we departed from the noisy and bustling city, and headed to the quiet and picturesque Bannerghetta National Park. For the past two days we have had many discussions and activities about health and safety, cultural differences, team building, gender roles, culture shock and just learning more about each other and the weeks to come. We also had the opportunity to go to the zoo and on a safari.

Although many of us are homesick and experiencing different levels of culture shock, we are extremely excited to be spending time together in this incredible country. We head to Mysore tomorrow!

Julie: Exploring Mysore…

Today, we have arrived in Mysore after much hard work from the Grouters (Global Routes Crew) and our wonderful leaders. The two-hour train ride was a bit difficult with all of our luggage, but Mysore is a beautiful city, much calmer than Bangalore.

We ate lunch at a really nice, vegetarian restaurant that had air conditioning, which was a nice surprise since a/c is rare here. Then we headed to Mr. Nanjappa’s house for cooking lessons, a language class and more in-depth cultural guidelines. Hopefully the night will finish with us contacting home, but if not, tomorrow we will be able to use the Internet cafe, call our loved ones and of course, update the blog!